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If full ride to Emory = use that to make an ivy give me more money?

Hi! If I do earn a full-ride or a very generous merit scholarship to Emory, and I end up getting into Columbia, one of my dream schools, with an okayish financial aid package, I can show Columbia Emory's financial aid and use it to get Columbia to give me more financial aid, right?

What you CAN do is discuss the situation with Columbia's financial aid office and see if there is something that was not overlooked or in a professional judgement area when putting together your Columbia package. If there is no such thing, no Columbia is not going to bargain with you. They do not give merit scholarships so they won't even address the issue of Emory's. Where there can be some discussion is if another's school's expected contribution amounts from your family is different due to the way some financial issue was handle by Columbia vs other schools, and if Columbia does not already have a hard fast procedure for handling such situations. That, and outright mistakes are all I have seen changed by the schools that already meet full need and are generous in defining it.

Where there is sometimes "wiggle room" is if you get a package from a school that does not guarantee to meet full need, that may not have met your full need and ask them to review a like or higher ranked school's package and see if they can come up with more. Even then, unless the school really wants you, what is usually offered is more loans or other self help. It's always worth a shot to discuss a package with the financial aid officers, however.

Those are a lot of ifs. Theoretically this could work, but you would have to be a very desirable applicant. I also think it usually works the other way around - schools that struggle to attract the very top students often throw money at them to get them to come to their schools and lure them away from the top. Columbia doesn't need to lure anybody away from Emory, since many students would turn down a full ride from Emory to pay to go to Columbia.

Since Columbia awards aid based on financial need only, posts #6 & 7 above are both mistaken. The schools that might be open to negotiation are those that offer either merit aid or combined merit-need aid. Columbia is not one of those schools.

From the website:

"There are no academic, athletic or talent-based institutional scholarships at Columbia as all of our institutional financial aid is need-based."

You are misinformed. Top ranked need-based aid colleges do in fact compete with each other to maintain yield by adjusting aid. "Need", I'll have you know, is a pretty abstract term. I have read many sources attesting to this fact.

"Also accepted to this other college" is not a basis for merit scholarships, anyway. -_-

Theoretically if the OP is low income than every penny is important. Really, OK all you can do is ask. Once you have the finaid offers in hand...ask. What's the worse case scenario? You attend Emory instead of Columbia if it's cheaper and since the college is supporting a great deal of your cost this is not a bad position to be in.

Yes, look at it this way - as a Questbridge candidate you are already looking at excellent colleges and you need to take the best offer. That is somewhat the entire purpose of Questbridge - to match low income high potential students with colleges. Like with any student, they are choosing you. Best of luck - I'm sure you will have a great outcome.

The reason I asked was because one of my friends who is basically like a College Admissions Guru said I should apply for Emory Scholars in the hopes that if I do get it, I can use that as a bargaining tool; I think he meant schools that give merit-based scholarships like UChicago, Northwestern, NYU, etc.

And @momofthreeboys: you're absolutely right. I kind of just realized that three hours after I sent in the Emory app :P But also, I've heard that some schools have their own specific formula for determining how much aid you need according to what they think aka it's subjective. Oh well :)

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